Phil felt sufficiently sorted in his house with his wargame room to restart his tradition of Christmas snacks and a wargame or two. Alas with Christmas commitments only Tim & I could make it, but it did give me a chance to air one of my new DBA Spanish armies.
I had first game against Tim. As it was announced he was using "Late Germans" I pulled out the Granadines (IV/38) so I could have a go at quick killing his knights with my light horse and massed cross bows.
Turns out he was using late Early Germans (11/47e) which is stuffed full of warband. Serves me right for trying to be clever.
I was defending, and put out a couple of difficult hills and a wood. I should probably have put out more, as Phil has some new boards and these are slightly bigger than 2' x 2'.
Any how, this picture is a turn or so in, and I've gone out wide with the light horse to try to pick off his weaker units and get into his rear. I've put most of the crossbows on a difficult hill and secured the left hand end of the line with spears, covering the flank with my knight general. I have succeeded in disrupting the advance with my shooting, recoiling the troops facing the DH.
First combat and I killed his Skirmishers/Psiloi, but when I turned everyone on one of his cavalry I
lost and got bounced. Damn. This enabled Tim to bring up his reserve cavalry to bolster this flank before I got another kill.
It is all turning a bit rubbish now. My shooting can't hit anything and I can't get a grip on his cavalry. The line of warband bears down upon me.
Oh no! I've lost a LH element, top right. My early favourable dice with decent numbers of PIPs and okay combat scores have deserted me.
My LH are locked in a fight to the death top right. Tim's infantry crashed home, supported by his cavalry on my left. He wisely choses not to attack the troops on the hill with his blades.
Oh dear. Everything is going backwards, except for my General. My edge to edge spears are now separated, giving Tim a double overlap on the only element that stands its ground.
It's edgy stuff. No one can get a kill. I bring my bows down off the hill slightly to get three elements shooting at those blades out there on their own, but can't roll more than two. I've bounced some of his infantry on my left, but it is surely only a matte of time before those crossbows in the centre crack.
Well I did finally hit something with the crossbows, and kill those lonely blades, but too little, too late. One of my LH on the right gets doubled by the cavalry, and then I lose some spears and a solid crossbow to the warbands, so I lose 4:2. Tim is turning into a tough opponent.
Thoughts? Well the bigger playing area wasn't really exploited, but I should probably have put out a lot more terrain pieces. I think did the right thing with the LH on the right, but I lost a combat I should have won, and so was unable to turn my LH on what would have been Tim's remaining cavalry element out there. I'd then have been tearing into the back of his main battle line looking for a single kill. It's a game of fine margins some time.
Tim then played Phil with his Massagetae (I/43) with Indian allies. This was a really tough game, where Phil was undone slightly by poor PIP rolls, but Tim took his time and made a whole series of good decisions to come out a 4:0 winner. I don't know if I've seen Phil win with the Massagetae. They are an unlucky army.
I also wonder if it would be good idea if you could move an elephant/group with elephant if you only roll one PIP as the only element/group you move.
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